Nidal Hasan, who opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009, killing 13 soldiers and civilians, awaits execution. [Reuters]
Nidal Hasan, who opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009, killing 13 soldiers and civilians, awaits execution. [Reuters]

The EU has warned online platforms not to livestream a public execution that US authorities have announced for a gunman who killed 13 people.

European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said Monday (local time), according to AFP, that under EU regulations online platforms must "strictly comply with their own terms of service" or face sanctions under the bloc's Digital Services Act (DSA). The warning was widely interpreted as a directive to block any livestream of the execution, citing platform provisions that prohibit graphic or disturbing content.

"Looking at some platforms — Meta explicitly bans the livestreaming of executions, and X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok also prohibit shocking content or content that glorifies violence," he said.

"I will not comment on what measures will be taken in the United States, but there are clear obligations in Europe," he added. "We will ensure that companies and online platforms comply with those obligations within Europe."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had earlier announced plans to carry out a public execution — by firing squad, open to witnesses — of Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at a US military base in November 2009.

If carried out as announced, the execution would be the first public one in the United States in 90 years, since Rainey Bethea, a Black man convicted of raping a white woman, was publicly hanged in Kentucky in 1936.

The Pentagon has said it plans to broadcast Hasan's execution in real time, though it has not disclosed the specific format, according to the Associated Press. Reports that the execution could be livestreamed have prompted warnings within the United States that doing so could turn Hasan into a "martyr" for Islamic extremists. Opposition has also emerged within the Republican Party, with some members saying a public execution and livestream is "the kind of thing terrorists or dictators do — not something that should happen in America."


kate01@heraldcorp.com